The Conspiracy I'm Waiting For

"Shoot," he said.

"This's been bugging me today. Not sure why. Who did the demon's voice in Amityville Horror?" I knew who did most of the demon voices in most of the demon movies I've seen, but this one stumped me.

"Oh, wow," he said. "You mean the one who says, 'Get ouuuuutt.'"

"Yeah."

"Hell, I always thought that was just my subconscious, talking to me in the movie theater." That seemed to be as good an answer as I was likely to get, so I accepted it.

For the last year or so, Morgan and I have been meeting up with Gary for beers a couple times a month?more often, if possible. And when we do, we know we have to be prepared to buckle down for the long haul.

Good as the bars had been to us, and would undoubtedly be in the future, we figured it was time for what Gary called a Knucklehead Field Trip.

Morgan and I had been out to the track a couple times over the course of the summer (though, granted, one of those times the track was closed) and figured we needed to get Gary out there too. Lured by the promise of killing an afternoon with large plastic cups full of cheap beer and a track full of skells, he agreed.

So one Thursday morning in mid-September we met, all three of us, near the LIRR ticket windows at Penn Station, waiting for a voice too reminiscent of something out of Alphaville to announce what track the Belmont train would be leaving from.

It's a lonely train, the Belmont train. As Morgan pointed out, it's almost as if the LIRR doesn't even want to admit that it's still running at all. It just goes to the track and back, four times a day, during racing season. First train will get you there half an hour before the first race, and the last train leaves half an hour after the last race. It's very simple and very convenient.

Nobody much takes the train any more. There's no big rush after the track's been announced, and you'll never have trouble getting a seat.

Funny thing is, as you're standing there waiting for the track to be called, you can scan the crowd and pick out the folks waiting for the Belmont train. It's simple. They're the rumpled ones, the old-timers in brown felt hats, the few who are already drunk at 11:30. The ones with the look of mild panic and desperation in their faces. The ones who obviously have nowhere else to go on a Thursday morning.

None of them ever makes a mad dash for the train. No one shoves or yells. Everyone shuffles, and most everyone's polite. We already know that we're doomed, so why make it worse? Or as the old saying puts it, "If you're already dead, what's the point of hurrying?"

We got our seats, sat back, opened up the Post and scanned their track columnist's picks for that afternoon. By the end of the day, we would come to hate that man.

None of us was exactly what you'd call a hard-core horseplayer?nor did we have any pretensions toward being so. Gary hadn't been to the track in 12 years. Morgan had just started this summer, and I'd been going to various tracks outside of various cities for 17 years without ever placing a winning bet. Not a win, place or show. Seventeen years, and not once had I been able to return to the ticket booth after the race, turn in my ticket and collect my winnings. It was a streak I was mighty proud of.

Once at Belmont, we followed the small, slow crowd inside, paid our dollar admission, picked up a racing program?beautiful and remarkable things in and of themselves?then found a beer stand,

"I'm gonna bet on the pretty one," Gary announced.

"Yes, fine, Gary?that's what you tell the person in the ticket booth. Tell them "Five bucks to win on the pretty one."

"An' I'm gonna feed 'im a apple, too," he said, grinning.

By the time we took our seats outside?in the row of benches closest to the track?we'd just about gotten all the references to The Killing out of the way for the afternoon, so we could finally sit down in earnest and begin poring over the lineup and the stats for the first race.

We weren't so naive that we bet by name alone?we took in the odds, the history, the weight, the drugs they were on, and whether or not it was the first time they'd taken them. But names didn't hurt. It's amazing, over the course of just a single day of racing, how many horse names will reflect a few personality types so perfectly. Revenge Happy, Distilled, Fast Modem, Not So Wacky, Appeal to Reason?the three of us were all in there someplace.

So was the wheelchair brigade, actually?two lines of them. The older ones were set up in front of a picture window with a clear view of the finish line, and the younger ones were wheeled outside. It was like Atlantic City again, except that there were more wheelchairs at the track than there were in the casinos.

And freaks, too?there was a small but very visible population of Very Special People haunting the concourse, which livened things up considerably.

We finished our first beers, went inside and placed our bets. It's simple with me?I stick with longshots, and I always bet to win, except when unusual circumstances are involved. I've never won betting this way, but believe you me, when I finally do, it'll be worth it.

We got more beer, went back out to the bench, and Gary began waving at the jockeys as they were paraded past on their way to the gates. None of them waved back.

"Stuck-up sonsabitches," he spat. "I like the pretty gray one, though. Did I bet on the pretty gray one?"

"I don't think so. You bet on the brown one. Did you specify that to the guy in the ticket window? That you wanted to place your bet on the brown one?"

The horses were moved into the gates, and we waited.

"At what point can I start screaming, 'Run, you whore'?" he asked.

"When they come around the far turn," I pointed. "That's when you start. If you listen, you'll hear it. That's when everybody starts screaming, 'Run, you whore.'"

When the horses broke from the gate, Gary waited patiently. But, as instructed, as they came around the far turn, he leapt to his feet and started shaking his first and yelling with the best of them.

"Run, you whore!"

My horse, Milwaukee John, came in last.

My next five horses lost, too. But both Gary and Morgan began to win?not a lot?a show bet here, a place there, an occasional win?but enough to pay for the next several rounds, and some hotdogs.

Between races, we started laying bets, just among ourselves, on the tractors that circled the track.

"Five bucks on 108!"

I always lost those bets, too. But at least the man driving the horse ambulance waved at me. That made me feel some better.

In the seventh race, I laid $10 on Keratoid's Chubbs who, at the beginning of the day, was listed as a 20-1 shot. By the time the horses left the gate, he was running?and running hard?at 99-1. He took a surprising early lead, which he eventually stretched out to three lengths. I was expecting him to drop dead before the final turn, but he didn't. I began to get the distinct sense that I might actually win one, and this worried me. It would mean my streak would end?and do so in dramatic fashion.

This time I was the one who started screaming, "Run, you whore!"

I stood up from my seat as they came down the final stretch. I began to clumsily and inaccurately figure the math in my head?

Let's see here, a $10 bet on a 99-1 shot to win, that comes to?

In the final yards, however, he faltered, as was destined to happen, I suppose?and he came in fourth.

Well, at least I still had my record to keep me warm.

in the next race, Morgan hit with both Aldo to win and In Frank's Honor to show?recouping everything she'd put down so far that afternoon, and then some?and with her winnings, bought one last round.

The three of us sat there, in the shade of the grandstand, no one else around us (maybe because they didn't dare), waving at the tractors. This time, the drivers waved back.

For the final race, I decided to put my money on Hip Happy Hip, which I knew from the get-go was a mistake.

And you know, I was right!